


How To Count To Three

by ItsSweaterWeather



Series: Lucky F**king Couple [1]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: F/M, POV Molly Hooper, Phone Sex, Pregnancy, Romantic Fluff, Sherlolly - Freeform, Slow Build, Sweet Sherlock, Voyeurism, a minor kink for Sherlock's LeCorbusier, i have this thing for fluids, just a reason to smut the keyboard up, loving couple doing loving couple things, married bliss, pregnancy!lock, sherlolly smut, smut but sweet smut, so sorry for all the cottony fluff!, some sweet christmasy stuff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-04
Updated: 2017-11-04
Packaged: 2019-01-28 11:18:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,672
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12605436
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ItsSweaterWeather/pseuds/ItsSweaterWeather
Summary: “Molly, astrology is about as useless as organized religion.” His eyes rattled as they rolled into his skull. “It has no scientific merit nor does it present any factors for testable theory, thereby doing the work for us and disproving its own credibility.”“And has my sea-goat ever read any of the character trait or compatibility charts?” she asked from over the top of her pathology journal.





	How To Count To Three

**Author's Note:**

> Another bit of fluffy-nutter silliness that NaNoWriMo hath wrought: unedited, unfiltered, nonstop typing with sweet sexiness! There are more coming - oh dear lord, I can't make them stop! These stories are borne out of my own brain's antsy-ness in plotting a super-slow simmering burn over at _[Bolthole Mixtape](http://archiveofourown.org/series/831951)_. I needed to assuage both my love of delayed gratification _and_ my desire for these two to just get down to it! So, here they get down to it.
> 
> A pox upon my head for the typos, inconsistencies, and assaults on the semi-colon (commas, too). And I take full responsibility for this unbeta'd drabble. I just realized that, as I'm now making this a series (damn you, NaNoWriMo!), I f*cked up my timeline by writing & publishing the 2nd story first. C'est la vie! 
> 
> ~~**Will be edited when I have the time. Thanx for your kind eyes during this 'I just gotta post it!' period**~~ Now edited. I own all the mistakes.
> 
> I hope you enjoy yourselves anyway :) I apologize for the unapologetic fluff.

“The first of January,” Sherlock interrupted.

Miss Rana Patel glanced at him from over the rim of her glasses then to the small woman sitting in front of her. She still felt a pang of guilt at having written Molly Hooper off, a 'mousy bleeding heart who hid behind dead bodies and defective cells all day' was what Rana labeled her back when she’d only known the pathologist in passing. Then Miss Patel’s father died of natural causes that seemed anything but. While Rana could do without the arrogant ‘consulting detective’ her family had hired, she’d warmed to the doctor slaving away over tissue samples and toxicology reports in the bowels of her own hospital. The detective may have unearthed the nefarious plot behind her father’s untimely death, but Miss Hooper won the conviction; her quiet way with complex facts and multitudinous data points served as a nice counterpoint to the detective’s imperious nature at trial. 

_“Sherlock…”_ Molly didn’t need to look over her shoulder at him. Her tone, neither indulgent nor threatening, hit an invisible bullseye at the very center of the consulting detective’s chest that prevented him from saying more. 

They were as unlikely a pair as Miss Patel had ever seen in her office. Sherlock Holmes towered over Molly Hooper, especially when she sat, as she did now, and he stood. His high cheekbones and long limbs gave him the appearance of a man much taller than his six feet, as did his fluid movements which hinted at the type of upbringing people labeled ‘well-bred’. Bespoke suitings. Well-manicured hands. A head of ridiculous dark hair that only an eccentric (with the quiet funds to back it up) could get away with. Each lock looked as though it needed a good deal of wrestling to keep it contained rather than behaving on its own - a lot like the man himself. 

Here, again, Molly Hooper provided contrast. The woman wrapped her small bones in secondhand or vintage items when she could’ve easily afforded higher-end, new clothing. She had a friendly but reticent manner that suggested small-town ordinariness: caravan holidays and trips to the nearest pick-your-own farm with family as a child; drinking tinnies and getting booted out of the village green as a teenager. And she opted for a hairstyle as easy and straightforward as her personality: the ponytail. 

But to distill their differences down to base minerals, Rana would have said that where Sherlock Holmes was the _observer_ \- watching, calculating, collecting information with his eyes and running the numbers through his brain, Molly Hooper was the _listener_ \- tuning in, feeling, gathering the spoken word and the silent pauses, poring over both with her heart, that ‘leaky organ in the middle of her thoracic cavity’ as Miss Patel now laughingly, lovingly called it.

Rana didn’t know the particulars of how this unlikely couple got together but Sherlock was a lucky man for it. There couldn’t be more than one person in a million, a hundred million, who’d thought him attractive after the first two minutes in his company. 

But they’d found their way to each other. What’s more, they fit; the test results were unequivocal. 

The Holmes’s were expecting their first child. 

 

*****

 

_“Sherlock…”_ Molly felt his eyes on her shoulders, a caress more reassuring that his hand in hers - although she liked that a great deal. But it wasn't his style, public displays of affection. And Molly didn't require them to know that the man behind her was, in fact, _behind_ her. Always. 

The office vibrated with his energy. He thrummed like a child about to get a new puppy. _Note to self - gently disabuse Sherlock of any and all ideas he may currently entertain about puppies until the nursery is occupied. And even then…_ They had one small bedroom and an alcove off the reception area. The 'nursery' in question was already overflowing and they hadn't even started.

Their predicament was no surprise to her, to him; they’d lost whole days to making up for lost time - amazing, ridiculously long hours at Baker Street (now his office) and Larkhall Rise (her flat, now their permanent home) playing the parts of fumbling teenagers unable to control hands and mouths; and lusty twenty-somethings who’d thought they’d invented the act. But, after eight years of knowing each other and waltzing around the inevitable, their best moments tended toward those reserved for long-marrieds - the couples who just 'knew' all the steps to dances without music.

So there was no mistaking why the middle of January came and went without so much as a cramp or the annoying, instantaneous full flow that made Molly feel like the cork had fallen out of her at the most inopportune moment. 

“As I was saying, Mr. Holmes,” Miss Patel continued, “It’s virtually impossible to know the precise moment when fertilization took place without laboratory conditions, a pipette, a Petri dish, and good old-fashioned intracytoplasmic sperm injection. As the two of you seemed to have gone rogue and taken it upon yourselves to 'do the deed' to satisfactory completion,” she laughed, "we have no recorded time stamps, no zinc sparks captured under fluoroscopic microscope..."

Air shimmied across Molly's neck; Sherlock fidgeting. He ached to get his hands on the required equipment for conducting zinc spark experiments at home. She'd have to remind him that, while sperm could be procured in massive quantities with minimal...expense, viable female eggs were _a bit_ more discerning and, therefore, difficult to retrieve within the confines of Baker Street's kitchen laboratory. Besides, they already knew the moment of fertilization or at least the act that had produced it, hence Sherlock helpfully supplying the date. He no doubt could look back at his call history and know, within half an hour either way, _exactly_ when he’d knocked her up.

She smiled to herself as Rana continued. The New Year's gift would give again to both of them in late September. She knew Sherlock didn’t go in for her belief in the metaphysical but, astrologically speaking, their future had winked at them from the constellations; the sister sciences of astrology and astronomy until, to Molly's mind, the patriarchy cast astrology down as the silly 'intuitive' stuff of silly women. Molly had a graduate degree in medicine and many certificates heralding her prowess behind a microscope. And she believed in astrology. A little Virgo or Libra baby would fit snug-as-a-bug between Taurus (her May birthdate) and Capricorn (his January birthdate), personality-wise. Science and intuition told her so. 

> “Molly, astrology is about as useless as organized religion.” His eyes rattled as they rolled into his skull. “It has no scientific merit nor does it present any factors for testable theory, thereby doing the work for us and disproving its own credibility.”
> 
> “And has my sea-goat ever _read_ any of the character trait or compatibility charts?” she asked from over the top of her pathology journal.
> 
> Sherlock took a noisy sip of tea and stood up, adjusting the collar of his second-best dressing gown with a flourish. He shot her a look honed in the halls of Oxbridge, the always enjoyable  _Please, I'm a learned man..._ cocked brow. “If you’ll excuse me, I have to get back to my violin…” he marched over to his music stand, retrieved his beloved Stradivarius and began to play. Loudly. 
> 
> She tossed her journal across the breakfast table and propped her feet up on the chair he’d just vacated. “So sayeth the disciplined, music-loving, and _condescending_ Capricorn,” she laughed. Louder.
> 
> He eased up on the pressure he applied to the instrument's neck but didn’t slow the frenzied movements of bow over strings. He didn’t bother turning around to face her, either. “Spoken like a stubborn and _uncompromising_ Taurus,” he countered. Louder, still. 
> 
> Molly tossed an unpeeled orange at his head. He glided left as the soft projectile missed right. _How did he always know when a missile headed his way?_
> 
> Sherlock stopped playing, picked up the orange and sauntered back to the table. He placed the thin-skinned fruit in her palm and wrapped her fingers around it. Molly felt the heat from his hand on the peel, and his breath across her temple. His lips pressed into a different part of her forehead after each word. “My reliable… _kiss_ …patient… _kiss_ …devoted… _kiss_ …and stable Taurus.” He pulled back and planted one more kiss to the tip of her little, upturned nose. “Who just so happens to also enjoy music, as do all Bulls. Much like her indomitable, _realistic_ Capricorn.”

The zodiac _discussion_ took place just before they left for holidays in Sussex. At the time, Molly didn't realize just how close she and Sherlock were to their stars aligning...

 

“I could turn the case down,” Sherlock sighed, staring at the ceiling and stroking the naked thigh she’d draped across his hips. 

Molly kissed his shoulder, the protruding acromioclavicular joint she found obscenely sexy. They’d just finished making the kind of quiet love necessitated by an ancient house owned by one's in-laws and packed to the gills with holiday guests. Her mobile pinged; the alarm she’d set so they’d have ample time, post _nap_ , (“Funny, you don’t look like you need a _rest,_ Brother mine…”) to bathe and change for Christmas Eve festivities at The Cock And Fox. Mummy Holmes ruled the kitchen on Christmas Day but she drew a hard line at the night before. “Christmas Eve is made for Gimlets, Molly, and someone else to shop, prepare, serve, and clean up the meal," she nodded. Wise words from a woman who knew of what she spoke.  

Who could argue with such sound reasoning? 

“You _could_ ," she agreed, "but you shouldn't. It's the most interesting case you and John have had in months. And we'll be fine, Sherlock. It’s a few minor repairs.” Molly took his hand and moved it higher on her hip. “It’s the least I can do for Mrs. Hudson while she’s up at her sister’s. Mrs. Turner will handle Rosie while I'm at Bart's and when I pick her up, I can take time out to check on the tuckpointing work. Sorted." 

She shifted her body and stretched on top of him, her chest to his, her belly fitted to the warm space beneath his ribs. She straddled him, her coarse, damp hair tickling his lower abdomen.

“Hmmm,” he groaned appreciatively. “How much time do we have?” He didn't wait for an answer, adjusting her position and running his hands up the back of her thighs. He floated over her rounded cheeks and skimmed his thumbs along the cleft.

“That was the first warning,” she smiled into the long, muscular column of his neck; a cat nuzzling her affection. “I built in two snooze alarms so we’ve got about 17 minutes…and _go!_ ”

Sherlock flipped Molly over, wedging a knee between her legs. He pressed his thickening cock into her belly. “I’m confident I can make good use of that time.”

Molly sighed into his mouth "Yes..." and wrapped her legs around his waist “...you have very good… time management skills… when you’re on a deadline.” 

“Shhh, Mrs. Holmes,” he chided, “John and Mycroft will never let you hear the end of it tonight.” He set his mouth to her pristine breasts, sucking with intent to bruise, lips and teeth rolling over the buds, his hands pawing at her ivory flesh in a wicked attempt to make her cry out. _Must needs when the devil drives,_ he laughed to himself. And he intended to drive Molly on - in under 17 minutes.

Christmas Eve went off with minimal teasing, Sherlock claiming innocence, of course, for any noises the rest of the house heard coming from their room in the late afternoon. Molly blushed apologetically. 

Rosie saved her auntie by looking absolutely darling in a little taffeta and velvet confection, courtesy of 'Gamma Hudders'. The toddler even managed to thaw a layer of ice off her Uncle Mycroft’s lovelorn heart; Greg spent the Eve with his kids but made the trip to Sussex at the crack o’ dawn on Christmas Day.

“Next year, we’ll go down to Australia to visit your mum and sister,” he whispered into her ear as Molly watched Rosie and Mr. Holmes play with the box that had held a new dolly.

“Not on your life,” Molly frowned, her tone tinged with mock disapproval. “I’ve only gotten through the 'William Vol 1' album and half of the 'Mykie & Sherlock' one. It’ll take me at least two more holidays to make copies of all the embarrassing photos. And your father says there's film! Can you imagine?!” 

Sherlock rolled his eyes heavenward and sat down, cross-legged on the floor, in his fine dark blue suit. He began stacking empty boxes into a tower with his father's and Rosie's help, mindful of dead load and vibration principles in the constructing his cardboard skyscraper. "See, Rosie, this is called tube construction. T-u-b-e. First developed by Fazlur Khan. F-a-z-l-u..." 

_If this isn't paradise,_ Molly thought, _then paradise isn't worth the bother and I'll stay in Sussex, thank you very much._

Molly, Greg, John, and Rosie laid low on Boxing Day, did their own things in the morning (reading, sleeping in, playing with new toys) while the original Holmes gang headed to Sherrinford. Mycroft brought a box of gorgeous coffee table books for Eurus filled with art and panoramic cityscapes she’d most likely never see in person. Greg’s nurturing had worked wonders on the eldest sibling; the gift was rather sentimental on Mycroft’s part.

Mr. Holmes (Molly still thought of him as ‘Mister’ with his head full of white hair and kind face) brought copies of pictures he’d taken of the Holmes children in their youth. He added newer ones, too, snapped with his old Leica camera at Mycroft’s and Greg’s wedding.  _“Oh I think the images on the phone are too impersonal, Molly. Besides, this hobby keeps me out of Mummy’s way.”_

Mummy packed vitamins, a beautiful pair of supple Italian leather flats in the cheeriest red she'd ever seen, and every manner of overcompensation cookie she could bake in that ancient cooker of hers. 

Molly’s heart broke.

Sherlock brought his violin, of course. Nothing more. His presence and his desire to play with his sister as she’d always wanted was gift enough - for both of him.

Molly’s heart swelled.

She worried that sorrow, gray and damp, would descend upon Sussex once they returned - and, really, she couldn't blame them all one bit. But in the glow of so much love - Greg and Mycroft, she and Sherlock, Mummy and Mr. Holmes - the remaining two days bubbled over with the very best of family. A strange family, no doubt, to people peering into their little circle. But it was hers now. 

Theirs.

They appeared fussy, argumentative, and exasperating to the outside world. And Molly loved them for it. 

On the last night, the entire brood took one last walk _en masse_ to The Cock and Fox. Outside of the lyrical quiet that filled the house for several hours after Sherrinford, only Sherlock’s toast drew tears that holiday.

“… To mothers in attendance,” he nodded to Mummy and, in the candlelight, Molly saw the impish, lovable boy with the pirate hat reflected in Mummy’s eyes.“Those not yet born,” he made a show of leaning into Molly’s ear and whispering loud enough for the table to hear, “although, I’m working quite diligently on this task... And those who've left us, gone to wherever the very best mothers go…” 

The boys avoided eye contact, John trying valiantly to ignore the saltwater collecting around rims of his eyes. Sherlock doing his best not to notice.

“Well,” Sherlock breathed. “To mothers. They make Christmas worth celebrating.”

Molly’s heart burst, as did the dam holding her own tears back.

“Did I do it wrong, _again?”_  he asked, brows knit in disbelief. “John?”

John stood up and handed Rosie off to him. “No, Sherlock,” he said, “you did it just right. Again,” and hugged his best friend. Rosie wiggled and laughed in agreement between the two men in her life.

 

Sherlock and John left London for Edinburgh early on 29 December. Their timing wasn't ideal but sentiment had never driven Sherlock's actions in the past. Molly saw no reason for them to start now. Besides, New Year's Eve now loomed with a festive "girl's night" ring to it; she'd have Rosie and Mrs. Hudson all to herself.

And all three of them would be asleep come midnight.

Baker Street had, indeed, gone to bed early on New Year's Eve. Mrs. Hudson took Rosie to her own rooms for one last sleepover before leaving for her sister's late the following afternoon. Molly didn't want to saddle the woman on her last night at home but Mrs. Hudson had already made up her mind. _"Don't be silly, my dear. I was young once, too,"_  Baker Street's den mother cooed, _"I know what it means to miss someone's heart on a holiday. Just do a little...oh, what is it the kids call it these days? Self-care, is it? Back in my day,"_ she whispered so not to offend the toddler in her arms, _"we called it, em, wanking."_

The former exotic dancer winked and trundled downstairs balancing little Rosie-of-the-world on her hip.

Only Molly had difficulty falling asleep. At 11:45, she gave up and traded Sherlock's old room for his old chair. She grabbed a book that she had no intention of reading and curled up in his LeCorbusier. The chair wobbled as she arranged herself, its chrome legs gone a bit wonky from damage sustained in the explosion.

The memory chilled Molly's spine; one set of frigid fingers spidering up to her brain while the other balanced her heart on the very tip of 'what might have been' had the boys not scattered before Eurus's bomb exploded. She never asked Sherlock about his visits to Sherrinford. If she got one at all, his response to a trite “So, how are you doing?” would’ve told her less than simply watching him when he collapsed into the sofa or on top of the bed. The answers came on breaths to her temple, the nape of her neck, the space between her breasts. 

It wasn’t that she didn’t _want_ to know. She wanted to. Desperately. But Sherrinford was his aborted past. He'd sort that with Ella and express himself with words when ready.

Sherrinford was the reason for their present and future together. She sorted _that_ with her own therapist; the difficult maneuvers her brain made to stay present, to allow that she and William Sherlock Scott Holmes deserved these moments of happiness in light of so much sorrow surrounding them; love and family and madness and death. Life in all its gory colours. All at once.

He didn’t place a lock on his visits with Eurus. On the contrary. Sherlock wandered home raw and wide open after each trip. Molly knew because he’d no words left for her by the time he walked through the door; the man with thousands had none for hours afterward. Music. He had music. And he played the remainder of those days away, stopping only to scribble notes on the staves of his blank manuscript paper and pencil in the odd chemical formula along the marginsof those same sheets; his brain working toward the middle from both the right and left ends.

After a year of serious cohabitation, Molly still couldn’t tell if he played a scale in G major or plucked in pig Latin. But she knew how the notes felt as they reverberated through her cells. She heard Sherlock speaking in the long, plaintive semibreves and the troubled quavers; watched him lose himself in Bartók and Saint-Saëns. Sometimes Gershwin - just because he knew she liked it. Molly hummed along, underscoring his solo in solidarity. _Summertime and the livin' is easy..._

And Bach. Always Bach; the first and last pieces he played. Overture and coda to his day.

For now, the music spoke when he couldn't. And she listened.

When she spoke, he sat quietly and observed, reading the thoughts she still kept to herself as easily as those she didn't.

If she continued down that road tonight, riding shotgun to her unspoken thoughts, she’d hit the roundabout to 'pity party town' and take the turn at a fast clip. She sat amid the dark, mismatched earth tones of Baker Street in his chair, wishing the heavy wool she'd wrapped around herself his body instead.

She missed Sherlock and his music. She missed Sherlock and the amusing noises he resorted to when words failed him. His morning bedhead. His droopy eyes when he stayed up too late. The nimble fingers that slid under her t-shirt or dipped beneath the waistband of her pyjama bottoms when he finally tucked into bed, curled himself around her body, and whispered 'I love you'. Twice. The words still tumbled out of his mouth as though he'd just borne witness to the most fantastical mystery.

She had Eurus to thank for that...

Molly hated the noisy revelers flowing in a steady stream beneath the windows, on their way to and from the station. She hated their happy-drunk bellowing. Hated that many of them would find comfort in warm arms tonight. This morning. Whatever. 

And she especially hated the damn cab that had idled in front of Baker Street for the last ten minutes. Honestly, where was his damn fare already?! Just move on or turn off the engine!

She felt sorry for herself; should climb back into bed and sleep it off. Or do as Mrs. Hudson hinted. _Self care._

Her mobile pinged at 12:01. She didn’t expect it in light of the disappearing and reappearing corpse which he and John had gone to ‘capture’. 

And her insides lit up like fireworks over the Thames at the sound. 

> _Happy New Year Mrs. Holmes. SH_

Would she ever not get a thrill out of seeing or hearing 'Mrs. Holmes' knowing that the label referred to _her_ and not his mother? The thought was a silly, a rather tainted sacrament; a ridiculous piece of paper that harkened back to a time, not so long ago, when women were chattel and valued at less than land (which they couldn't own). Molly prized her independence, her education, her career...and her husband. She'd suffer all the derision she received from uni girlfriends at her delight in such and outdated notion the next time the girls got together. Gladly. Then she'd pay for a round of drinks (or two) with the funds she'd earned, not with some pin money given to her by a benevolent male keeper.

> Auld lang syne to you Mr. Holmes.
> 
> _Robert Burns. A fitting choice given my location and the date._
> 
> Quite.
> 
> _Although I’d be a happier man if my location was different._
> 
> Quite.
> 
> _Perhaps we can remedy that._
> 
> Oh! Did you solve the case already? I wouldn’t be surprised if you and John had.

She didn’t want to get her hopes up but…

> _No. It seems reanimated corpses are quite difficult to catch._
> 
> I’d imagine. So what can I do to ease your discomfort, Mr. Holmes?
> 
> _Depends on where you are. Where are you?_
> 
> Sitting all by my lonesome in your sitting room, fittingly enough.
> 
> _Yes but where?_
> 
> In your chair. Under a blanket.
> 
> ...

The indicator bubbles danced while he typed what appeared to be a novella.

> _Perfect._

Then digital silence. Molly’s tummy fluttered with possibilities and not a little bit of tingly trepidation. She may have logged more partners than he, but Sherlock was shameless; now that he had unfettered access, he showered Molly with the entire spectrum of his need, from drizzle to full force gale.

And she very much enjoyed getting drenched.

She shuddered and punched out a message with shaky fingers.

> Where are you husband?

Ever the drama queen, Molly expected Sherlock to unleash a treatise on the _dire_ conditions at some first rate flat he’d taken, complete with the appropriate eye roll-inducing punctuation.

> _Naked on top of the duvet i don’t want anything more than 400 miles between us_

Alrighty then.

How easy for the camera in her mind to flicker with images of him just so; long and pale except for the silky dark waves on top of his head and the tufts beneath his arms where his scent was so strong. Not the sandalwood and woodsmoke of his posh soap; his own clean musky smell. She inhaled, hoping to catch even a whiff of him here, still floating around in the ether of his old rooms.

She especially loved the faint trail that sprouted just below his navel and lead down to the coarser, darker hair between his legs. She’d followed that path with her fingers, her nose, her lips, and her tongue.  

> _Are you lonely for me Molly_
> 
> Yes. Of course.
> 
> _ are you wet for me molly _

Molly swallowed. Storms brewed when Sherlock lost his capitalization and punctuation… 

> Yes. 
> 
> _how do you know_

She bit her bottom lip and squirmed in his chair.

> i    my pants are wet

Molly lost her capitalization and punctuation too, in addition to her restraint. She slid her fingers under her shirt, grazing the center line of her body.

> _we ll have to rectify that_ _later_
> 
> yes
> 
> _wheres your hand molly_

She froze for a moment. Between the two of them, they’d endured enough invasion of privacy to last a lifetime. But it wouldn’t surprise her if he’d set up a camera in anticipation…

> where is your hand sherlock

Two could play this game.

> _on my cock molly_

Oh. 

Sherlock Holmes played at verbosity with all the skill of a composer stringing devilish notes together. He adored language, the sound of his own voice, almost as much as he loved Bach’s notorious Chaconne from Partita in D minor. She’d heard him speak of - and play -the piece often enough that she took as much ownership of it as her violinist did. “First, there’s Bach…,” he’d say, launching into the movement; then, after fifteen minutes of fiendish, Baroque string acrobatics, he’d shrug and wave his bow around in apathetic circles, “…and then there’s everyone else.”

But Molly’s bones turned to gelatin when he unleashed simple, straightforward sentences on her. 

_ First, there's Sherlock... and then there's no one else. _

With those five short syllables, he'd torched through layers of soft tissue and hard calcium phosphate to her marrow. Molly had no response. She imagined a corner of his plush lips quirking upward, knowing exactly what his naked statement did to her.

> _molly_
> 
> yes
> 
> _how do your tits feel in your own hands_

> i
> 
> touch them for me

Her hands were already moving. 

Molly closed her eyes and palmed her breast, mapping the cool, smooth underside that Sherlock loved so well. If she tried hard enough, she could feel the tip of his nose skimming the shallow crease where breast met the thin skin covering her rib cage.

> soft cool
> 
> _like bolts of silk_

She’d take his word for it. Right now, she just wanted to pretend that her hands were his and his words were spoken instead of pecked out on a keyboard some 400 miles away. By a stark naked man.

With one hand on his mobile. And the other wrapped around his cock.

> _molly_
> 
> yes  sherlock
> 
> _i want u to glide ur palms over ur nipples for me_
> 
> ...

Ohhh...yes. Yes. Anything he asked.

Everything he asked.

Molly spent her days, and many nights, as a quiet queen bee in a buzzing hive, giving everything she had to her lab staff, the disembodied tissue samples that crossed her microscope, and the dead who laid before her on the slab. She plumbed for secrets that rarely wanted to be found from bodies that never wished to be opened. 

To place herself under his command, in those strong and very capable hands when they were alone... long, bony fingers that neither pushed nor pulled but, somehow managed to mold and shape her, and wring the last drops of pleasure from her... 

Only a female deity could've carved someone like Sherlock; a body fit for wickedness the likes of which would make even Caligula blush and tempered with a private disposition that alluded to...the most sentimental of hearts. 

How could she not give her complete self over to him when the reward was his full reciprocation? 

> _ when they r good and taut i want u to pinch them for me  _
> 
> ...
> 
> _ hard  _
> 
> _ ... _
> 
> _ i want u to feel it in ur sweet little pussy _
> 
> ...

He'd begun to abbreviate his words, hands too busy with his gorgeous length to maintain the rules of English grammar that he held so dear. Molly heard his voice in her head; the wintery baritone like wind through the dried leaves clinging to hibernating trees; rustling and powerful but not at all chilly despite its low register.

And she did exactly as he instructed.

His phantom voice warmed her, the timbre radiating out from her belly into her limbs, her fingers, which now pinched her rock hard little pebbles as he'd done so many times before. The shockwaves of pleasure and pain pooled between her legs. Thank goodness she wore her pants and her silk pyjama bottoms - part of an ensemble that Mummy Holmes had given her to mimic Sherlock's best dressing gown. But she felt indulgent wearing so much silk to bed so Molly always opted to top the bottoms off with a uni or conference t-shirt.

She'd never look at his chair again without burning up if even a drop of her liquid heat seeped onto the leather...

> _ molly _
> 
> _ my cock s like steel now _
> 
> _ aches for u _
> 
> _ cant squeeze hard enough to feel u _
> 
> ...
> 
> _ feel how wet u r for me _
> 
> _ take off ur bottoms all of them _

The blood thundered in Molly's ears. To sit naked in his chair - to come all over it, leave her DNA embedded in the leather - rated number three on her all-time fantasy list. She’d harbored the ache of doing just so between her legs for years.

Only…only Sherlock was present in her fantasy. Not via text. And while each could call the other right now, hear the filthy language live, the moaning, the breaths caught between words, somehow the texting added a protective layer around the outright subversion. Sherlock knew she’d feel more comfortable with his request if she gave free rein to her imagination without him in the room - at least for the first time. 

Her face flamed with embarrassment and desire as she flung her pyjamas and pants to the floor. When Molly’s bare bum touched the leather, her own body temperature welcomed her to relax into the supple, worn hide.

> _ have u done it _

Impatient man. 

> yes
> 
> _ every time i sit in that chair now im going to feel ur bum under me _
> 
> sherlock
> 
> …
> 
> _ uve wanted to do this for a long time molly _

How did he always know? 

> yes
> 
> _ thats my girl _
> 
> _ hmmm molllly my balls r so tgiht i wnt hold out lnog _
> 
> …
> 
> _ slide ur hands dwn over ur ribcage ur bely _

Misspellings. Molly closed her eyes and saw him, eyes closed, cheeks tipped pink and jaw slack. His legs apart, mobile dangling from his fingertips while the other hand palmed his bollocks and fisted the base of his shaft, fingers glowing like marble against dark, taut skin. 

Her skin rippled, a vibrato she needed to release under the weight of his bow. Amazing how close he’d already pushed her with nothing more than little pixels on a screen and her own hands. 

She missed him. Needed him. 

Molly’s tongue slid across the inside of her teeth, desperate to feel him - all of him - in her mouth

> sherlock
> 
> _ mmm yes _
> 
> i want to taste u
> 
> _ yes _
> 
> i want to feel u in my mouth taste salt and warm 
> 
> _ yes _
> 
> where is ur hand
> 
> _ in ur hair u look so beautiful eyes closed mouth around me ur dark hair auburn strands gold too between my fingrs _
> 
> i need to taste u
> 
> _ yes so hard for u _
> 
> …
> 
> _ molly i want u to taste urself for me _

Oh god. Her legs jerked open, body eager to do his bidding whether her brain had registered the urge or not. Sherlock liked to taste her and he especially liked the taste of her on her own lips. He practically made himself come by diving into her mouth, his lips glistening with wet, after making her orgasm. 

Molly had found a prince among mere men.

She’d oblige him and herself in any way she could.

> …
> 
> _ tell me how ur pussy feels when u slip ur fingers inside _
> 
> mmm my curls scratch my palm lips r swollen so warm
> 
> _ mmm yes i feel u against my mouth my chin _
> 
> …
> 
> _ ur little clit is hard my little pearl _
> 
> sherlock 
> 
> _ id spend days between ur legs if u didnt require so much feeding _

Her laugh skipped around Baker Street’s muffled sitting room. How he retained his sense of humor on the knife edge of orgasm she didn’t know.

Molly loved food; takeaway, home-cooked, fine dining, little dives. It didn’t matter. She ate and enjoyed enough for both of them and took great pleasure in the times when he’d submit to a meal. Sherlock remained partial to her late night, ‘everything in the pan’ omelettes - taking bites off a shared fork and sipping wine from a shared glass. But he loved dragging her to the tiny storefronts he came across while investigating cases. And his go-to Bangladeshi just off Brick Lane; a quite a recommendation if the man who didn't make a habit of taking regular meals rates yours as his favorite.

> sherlock 
> 
> _ tell me molly how many fingers _
> 
> two 
> 
> _ thats not nearly enough _

Again, she heard his wicked smile on her skin

> i know muscles clench around them want u instead hard sucking
> 
> …

She typed nonsense and she didn’t care.

> _ molly hit the record button and fuck urself for me tell me everything  _
> 
> ...
> 
> _ i want to listen to u again tonight and in morning afternoon night again _

Molly’s mind spiraled down the column of her spine, a drain tunneling to her core and filling with his words, his voice, images of him naked and spread beneath her; him laid bare, his body and his scars. She saw the ghosts near the creases of his arms, the whip lacerations sustained during Lazarus, the near-deadly starburst memory just off the center of his chest.

And the ones from his missing childhood buried deep in his psyche.

“Oh god, Sherlock, I need you inside me, fucking me… ohhhh… so wet for you.” She panted and sunk deeper into the leather of his chair, her little t-shirt riding up over her breasts. Molly pressed her tippy toes into the carpet to keep from falling off, thighs tensed and fingers doing the work for him; not nearly as well.

Not even close. But _she_ was all she had.

Molly palmed and pinched her breasts with her free hand then abandoned them for her clit, intent on saturating this most masculine piece of furniture with every drop of her feminine power.

The thought of Sherlock stroking himself to climax, thick ropes of his need and longing and genetic code exploding across his stomach and chest to the sound of her voice thrilled Molly. 

Him sitting in the back of a taxi of a regular old Wednesday, listening to that same recording, mobile pressed to his ear, trousers uncomfortable over his thickening length, filled Molly with a perverse sense of ownership over him, a base and feral thought, one she never entertained outside the confines of sex. But ownership just the same: silk strips wrapped around the wrists, the lasso accompanying ancient banns; black leather cords cutting into flesh, enough to chafe during during a struggle, not so much to wish freedom from - on the contrary; a simple platinum circle around the ring finger, an engraving to the inside - a private message.

Her body and soul ached to come for him.

“Sherlohhhhhhck…” She had no syllables but the ones that formed his name. Niggling self-doubt crept into her brain. She couldn’t get the words out to describe how much she needed him, how she imagined his skin on hers, his body in hers.

And she wouldn’t fake it. Wouldn't do that to herself. Molly wanted to make him happy, to sigh and moan and pant her loneliness away. To cry out for him and tell him in sounds and words, as he'd requested, how much he turned her on. Wanted to make a spectacle of herself for the sheeer pleasure that it'd bring to both of them.

She inhaled through her nose, breathing Sherlock in; his books and trace amounts of his kitchen laboratory chemicals. None of it enough to push her over the edge. She _needed_ so much.

“I can smell you from here.”

She sprang bolt upright. Her eyes struggled to focus on the silhouette in the doorway. But there was no mistaking the graceful sweep of his coat tails, his height and that pile of mussed up hair atop his head.

“What… Sherlock!”

“I’ve been idling downstairs in a taxi for the last hour,” he purred. “Damn thing had no heat.”

He crossed the threadbare rug in two quick strides and sank to his knees in front of her. Molly didn’t know if the dim glow of the streetlights or his scent invading her nostrils played tricks on her but something converged, slowed his movements despite his speed. 

Handsome and balletic. And hers. 

Sherlock’s chilled hands clasped over her knees. He stared up at her, mischievous eyes and villainous grin. 

In that moment, there was nothing Molly would’ve refused him. She didn’t have to. He moved like quicksilver spreading her legs wider and planting a chaste kiss to her abdomen, then moving lower, speaking directly against her mound.

“I have to be back in Edinburgh tomorrow night.” He blew at her coarse hair and nuzzled her seam between his lips. “But I couldn’t leave my bride to spend her first New Year’s as Mrs. Holmes alone, now could I?”

No, he couldn’t, thank the goddess who orchestrated such things!

He sucked at the sensitive crease where her leg met pelvic bone. Molly envisioned broken capillaries, a branding that would keep her company for the remainder of his stay in Scotland. “I’m going to make you come all over my chair. Then I’m going to scoop you up and take you to my bed, make you come there, too…” He turned his head and gave her a matching mark on the other leg. “Then I’m going to draw you a bath, settle into behind you and wash your hair….” His mouth returned to her core, hovering just over where she needed him most. He teased her with his breath. “And then we’re going to sleep like the dead until the afternoon when I make you come one more time before hailing a taxi to King’s Cross and boarding a train back north.”

Molly thread her fingers into his hair and arched her pussy toward him. “You could walk to King’s Cross from here,” she smirked, circling her hips as his fingers wedged there way under her thighs. 

“I could, yes,” he agreed, “but I anticipate sore muscles and an uncharacteristic emptiness settling in the hollow cavity beneath my ribs upon leaving you.”And then Sherlock Holmes was where Molly Hooper-Holmes had wanted him since the day they met over the autopsied body of a suspicious lorry accident victim. His lips rolled over her in a hypnotic rhythm, set to counter her own movements, pulses that the female body knew since before the wheel of evolution spun round.

Time reversed then evaporated, nothing but scent and sound surrounded her. And the sight of his dark head buried between her pale legs. His hands clamped around her bum, lifting her to him as though she a feast and him a starving man. 

She was the one deprived, frantic for him, almost in tears over his attention and care, the physical manifestations as well as the emotional; both of which drove him to take the lonely, late train five hours to be with her, traveling through towns and cities mindlessly celebrating the New Year just so he could do the same with her.

No silly crowns or confetti or noisemakers. Just… the two of them. 

“Molly…” 

His tongue worked her with relentless patience and she couldn’t take it any longer.

“Sherlock.” She pulled him away from her and reached for his trousers, fumbling for his belt. “I need you. Please. Fuck me. Right here.”

He groaned, the kind of noise that couldn’t possibly be human, and stumbled to his feet. Molly would’ve helped him out but she was frozen in place, watching his fingers shake with the same urgency that flowed through her. 

And another wave of ownership permeated her cells. She bit her bottom lip to keep the grin from muscling up to her temples. Ever observant, Sherlock read her thoughts, so plain were they to see on her face. He raised a brow at her and slid his trousers and pants down to his ankles. His cock sprang free, flat against his abdomen in all its elegant glory, his foreskin almost purple with the rush of blood, the flared head glistening with a bead of clear fluid.

She wanted to lick him, suck him dry but had no time for further daydreaming. Sherlock slipped out of his coat, the wool puddling to the floor. He somehow managed to scoop her into his arms with his trousers and pants strangling his legs, and trade places with her, stumbling backward into his LeCorbusier with her on top of him. Molly wrapped her fingers around him, warm and velvety skin giving slightly in her hand - hard and vulnerable. 

He cried into her neck as she guided him into her, engorged labia welcoming him home, deep muscles pulling him in and holding him there. 

“Molly…” he swallowed. His tongue sought her mouth, found it. “You taste so good.”

She grabbed his jaw and held him where she wanted him. “Sherlock. Don’t stop.” 

He didn’t, pummeling into her, hands forcing thighs wide and her hips down. Molly's fingers grappled for something to hold onto, to keep herself in his saddle until she rode him out to the darkest part of the forest. She found the lock of hair she loved so much, curled at the nape of his neck. She pulled.

His eyes met her hazel ones. His pupils blown wide, deep onyx things eclipsing a sliver of gray polished stone. She pressed the tip of her nose to his and held tight, with her hands, her eyes, her thighs, her core.

“Come for, me Molly. Come _on_ me, Molly," he begged.

“Not without you, Sherlock.”

His eyelids fluttered and his thrusts became erratic. Their ride was coming to an end, she saw the jump and the abyss ahead of them. And she drove both of them over the edge, raining down on him.

And his fine leather chair.

 

*****

 

Sherlock tucked Molly under the blankets and left her in his old bed with damp, clean hair and little red love bites to the insides of her thighs. He'd have to hurry if he wanted to make the 3:58 back to Edinburgh as he'd promised John. He retrieved his Belstaff from where he'd left it to rot on the carpet. He glanced at his chair and smiled. Sitting through endless client interviews would be a delight going forward. 

He caught the black glint of her phone as he twisted his scarf around his neck. 

With a quick flick of his thumb, he entered her passcode - hardly Fort Knox - and swiped until he found what he was looking for.

There, in the little file folder of recordings was about thirty minutes labeled 'untitled - recording 2'. He pressed play. A corner of his mouth kicked up as the muffled noises came to life. His appearance startled her so much last night that she hadn't stopped the recording.

He sent the file to himself and deleted the recording from her phone. He had other plans for their first New Year's together, namely editing the recording down to the best bits and sending a copy to her when she least expected it but most needed to hear the breathy concerto most.

Sherlock flipped his phone in the air, caught it, and shoved it deep into his pocket. Then with one last look toward the bedroom door, he reluctantly headed downstairs.

Mrs. Hudson and Rosie met him at the bottom. 

"So, Sherlock," she beamed, "Mission accomplished?"

He kissed Rosie on the forehead first, then his landlady. "Couldn't have done it without your assistance. I owe you."

"Och," the old woman crinkled her nose at him, "Not to worry. I know what it means to miss someone's heart on a holiday. Now, get off with you. You'll miss that train and John'll be angry. Rightly so. You're a grown man; show some restraint. We'll see you when you get back home. Won't we, Rosie?"

Sherlock smiled back at them and they waved him off. He bounded out to Baker Street and into an idling taxi. He looked up at the windows to his old flat, calculating how much time he still had before the train left... The cab pulled away from the curb before he could push the thought further, take the stairs, two at a time, back up to Molly.

He wandered through King's Cross, for once not collecting data, taking no notice of anything so much as the deep, exhilarating soreness of his own body. On board, he settled into his seat and searched his pocket for his mobile. He retrieved the small earbuds and inserted the jack.

Sherlock closed his eyes as the train pulled out of the station and pressed 'play'.


End file.
